Mikhail Kirponos

Mikhail Kirponos (12 January 1892-20 September 1941) was a Colonel-General of the Soviet Union who fought in World War I, the Russian Civil War, Winter War, and World War II.

Biography
Mikhail Kirponos was born on 12 January 1892 in Verkiyivka, Chernigov Governorate, in the Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine). He worked as a forester before he was conscripted into the Imperial Russian Army in 1915 during World War I. In 1917 he joined the Red Army and the Bolshevik Party in 1918, and he fought in the Russian Civil War. Kirponos graduated from the Frunze Military Academy in 1927 and commanded Soviet troops in their war with Finland in the 1940 Winter War.

Kirponos was made commander of the Kiev Military District in January 1941, and ignored Stavka orders to belay reports that Nazi Germany was planning an invasion of the Soviet Union during the night of 21 June 1941. He was awake all night pending orders, and when the invasion began, he was ready. With the Kiev Military District now called the Southwestern Front, Kirponos was made a Colonel General and defended Ukraine from the German forces in Operation Barbarossa, and defended the city of Kiev from a siege by the army of Heinz Guderian. Kirponos was killed in action defending the city, and is a national hero in both the Ukraine and Russia.